A history of glacial boundaries in Indiana

Abstract

"This publication traces the progress of mapping the furthest extent of the Pleistocene ice lobes in Indiana from their first understanding in the mid-nineteenth century to the boundaries that define current knowledge of the glacial limits. The work of mapping glacial boundaries in Indiana first focused on identifying the extent of the southernmost advances of pre-Wisconsin-age ice lobes. The line so defined is of uncertain precision and over the years has been subject to change. Later work has identified the position of the more recent, more influential, and better defined Wisconsin-age glacial limit. The report describes the historical progress of mapping these boundaries, which are important to an understanding of the geological and hydrological processes intimately related to the distribution of materials that remain from the glacial advances. An annotated bibliography is included, which provides details of the historical literature and describes the stepwise and cumulative contribution of many workers in mapping the glacial boundaries in Indiana. Associated with this report are geographic information system (GIS) data layers representing the two major glacial boundaries in Indiana (Pre-Wisconsin and Wisconsin). These can be downloaded as shapefiles from the IndianaMap under the “Geology” category: http://inmap.indiana.edu/dload_page/geology.html.